Today's sermon

Year C Easter 2 (2010) RCL Principle

Acts 5.27-32
Psalm 118.14-29
John 20.19-31

Doubt is good!

Poor Thomas – always remembered as the one who needed proof. The one from whom we get the saying ‘Doubting Thomas’ – a saying still used in a Biblically illiterate nation, with generations of people who don’t understand phrases, or at least don’t know the root and deeper meaning of phrases like ‘Prodigal Son’, ‘Treasure in Heaven’, ‘faith like a mustard seed’, ‘Job’s comforter’ nor many others that most of us have grown up with.

Thomas, remembered because he couldn’t accept the stories that the others were telling – because he didn’t happen to be with the others when Jesus appeared. Doubting Thomas because the fantastic events recounted by his friends were too much to grasp, because he needed more.

But let’s be honest here, how would you or I have reacted? Jesus was dead – really dead, cold and in the ground kind of dead. For those of us who have lost anyone to death then we know something of that loss, that devastation, that emptiness that comes with bereavement. Death is so very final – and the loss stays with us. We don’t like talking about it – in fact in many ways it is the last taboo that our society has. But it is a reality that changes us. Even thirty years or so later I miss my grandparents and the compassion and encouragement they showed me in my formative years, and thirteen years after my father’s death I still have days when I miss him terribly – his wicked sense of humour and forthright way of expressing his opinion (and that’s putting it politely).

We know how it feels, most of us, to have lost someone we care about. It was summed up perfectly for me by a colleague from Washington DC who, as we talked about our role in leading funerals said, simply, ‘Death Sucks’.

And that’s how all of the disciples must felt. Devasted, lost, afraid of what might happen to them, very aware of their own mortality I’m sure. Their grief and loss were so overwhelming that they gathered together in the upper room, comforting and supporting one another. All but Thomas. They all saw Jesus, all felt his breath upon them, heard his blessing of peace, shared in that moment of resurrection.

But Thomas didn’t.

For Thomas the devastation was still real, the feelings still raw.

No wonder the disciples excited babbling about seeing Jesus alive again, about him reappearing in the upper room made no sense, no wonder he wanted some kind of proof.

And Jesus, graciously, lovingly, openly gives him what he needs. It’s worth noting that we have no record of Thomas taking Jesus up on the offer of checking out the holes in his hands, feet and side but worships him. He doesn’t persist in his doubt, but declares Jesus his Lord and his God.

But would we have been any different? Would we have walked into that room of excitable disciples and said ‘yes, of course Jesus is alive’?. I’m not sure I would.

I get the feeling that Jesus’ comment ‘blessed are those who have not seen me but still believe’ is not so much a criticism of Thomas but an encouragement to us. We don’t have that chance to see Jesus for ourselves, but the witness of Christians through the ages and the conviction of the Holy Spirit is the foundation for our statement that Jesus is alive!

If I’m honest, I have days when the whole resurrection of Jesus thing is beyond my grasp intellectually. I cannot, as they say, ‘get my head around it’. But I can get my heart around it! Firmly I believe, and truly, that Christ is Risen! I allow the faith of the Church and the truth of the Gospel to hold me even in my doubts.

If anything, the story of Thomas gives us the freedom to doubt. It shows us that the doubt is not the enemy of faith, but that we need to hold on to those glimpses of Jesus to get us through our times of questioning and struggle. And we can see throughout Scripture that Thomas is in good company – St Paul struggles with what the Gospel means, some of our Old Testament heroes are constantly trying to get to grips with the demands of faith and the calling of God, and even at the Ascension, when Jesus is there we read, in Matthew 27 v 18 ‘And they worshipped him, but some doubted’. Doubt is a part of what makes us human, and part of what makes up our faith.

It is important to remember, doubt is not the opposite of faith, unbelief is. Struggling with, thinking about, asking questions regarding Faith is part of truly engaging with the amazing, pretty much unbelievable, reality that faith and a relationship with Jesus brings us.

If we really consider all that the disciples went through then we can see that Thomas’ response isn’t at all abnormal. But Thomas went past his doubts – though I suspect that like all of us he didn’t leave them behind completely. The tradition and belief of the Church is that Thomas like all the Apostles went out to proclaim the Gospel – in fact it is believed that he founded the Christian Church in India which still exists to this day – the oldest Denomination in India, called the Mar Thoma Church. His faithfulness and desire to share the news of the living Christ took him to another land, and it is believed that like most of the Apostles St Thomas was put to death for his faith.

We need doubt in the Church – but we need it alongside faith. Our willingness to ask questions should be alongside a desire to know Jesus better and to open ourselves up to his touch and his life. We struggle through the difficult times in our walk with Christ but we keep walking with him – carrying the cross he calls us to bear as we follow the one who bore it first.

And like Thomas, no matter what our doubts, we continue to worship and to proclaim Jesus. We share the good news of our risen, loving Lord in all circumstances and no matter what the cost. Thomas went out and declared his faith, sharing the risen life of Jesus with those he met; how many people have we shared that resurrection life with lately?

Reading this account of Jesus’ resurrection appearance excites me because it tells me it is OK to doubt, and that Jesus meets us with his grace, and with outstretched arms. It challenges me too, and should challenge each one of us, to consider our part in the Mission of God – our own calling to live and to be the Good news of Christ, bringing his life to a world so in need of his life.

Will you let the story of Thomas the Apostle, Thomas the Believer, Thomas the friend of Jesus inspire, challenge and motivate you? If so, how – for if we allow God to talk to us through this Scripture we may find comfort in our doubts, but we also hear again the calling to be faithful and to live in the light of the risen life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God.

An Easter Thought

As it says in the Sermon, there's no new thought here, but perhaps the ancient truth can give new life!

Easter Day (2009) Year B RCL Eucharist

An ‘Easter frame of mind’

In some ways it is quite hard to prepare an Easter sermon, particularly when, as is usual with sermons, one is preparing during the week before. This last week was, of course, Holy Week, and this year we have made special effort this year to observe Holy Week, with services that have focussed on healing, on repentance, and telling of the painful events of the Passion of our Lord Jesus, from his arrest to his crucifixion. In this week we have sought to set our minds on the passion and the death of our Lord Jesus and not on his resurrection. Though we know what happened beyond the cross part of our observance of this week just gone is to call to mind all that Jesus went through to bring us life in all its fullness.

So this sermon was started on Maundy Thursday, after the service of the renewal of Ministerial Promises which I (and various Readers, Deacons, Priests, Bishops and even a few normal people) attended in the Cathedral in the morning. And as I wrote I tried to put myself in an Easter frame of mind. It wasn’t too difficult, just a little odd.

This led me to thinking that perhaps it is too easy to fall into the ‘Easter frame of mind’. Perhaps we too easily skip over Holy Week and don’t really take part in the observance that is perhaps the most important part of the Church’s year. We jump on to Easter, Easter is familiar, perhaps even comfortable. We’re used to Easter, we think about it every week – we refer to our risen Lord, and talk of ‘Christ in Glory’.

How much does our familiarity breed not contempt, but an indifference. For how many of us will have allowed the message of Easter to hit us? To affect us? How many of us are using our heads and our hearts to engage with the wonderful truth of this day? How many of us are feeling something different about our service today? How many of us are feeling as though we are ready to encounter the risen Christ in bread and wine this morning?

It’s true, we celebrate the risen Christ in every Eucharist which we share. It’s true, we should live the life of Christ in our everyday discipleship. It’s true that Jesus is alive in our world, in our lives and in our hearts – but on this most holy of days we should be open to God’s new life being shown and made real again in a new and surprising way. Easter Day is the celebration that defines the very being and nature of the Church. Easter day is a symbolic celebration of the most stunning, surprising, disturbing, shocking, exciting and mind bending event in the whole of history. We cannot take Easter too seriously, and we cannot celebrate Easter too fully!

We must never let ourselves think that this is anything but the entire reason we are here today as Christians. We must never become cold or indifferent towards the events which we celebrate this Easter day, and indeed every Sunday in the breaking of bread and sharing of wine, we must allow ourselves to share in the new life which Easter brings.

It’s Easter! – We should mark it with celebration and excitement. We change the colours of our Church into our party clothes, whites, colour of life, light, and celebration. We have brought flowers back into Church. We have uncovered our statues and brought back our cloths to the Altars. It is party season.

Easter isn’t a festival to take for granted. It’s something that should hit us afresh every year. It’s a time when we can view our faith with new eyes, to hear the story of God’s love for all people with new ears. Easter is a time that allows us to open our hearts again to wonder, to amazement, to the undeserved, unlimited Grace of our loving, benevolent, self-giving, life-filled, life-giving God..

There’s no new message for me to give at Easter – but the old message of God’s love, God’s self-giving and God’s absolute forgiveness should hit us again as if it were new. Imagine hearing it for the first time, try and take a moment to think how the message that we consider so familiar, that we often take so lightly, might sound if we were hearing it for the first time. Think about how you might feel if someone came to you, and you had no knowledge of the Christian faith whatsoever, and told you that this person Jesus had died a most terrible death and was brought to life again – and that he gave us the opportunity to share in that life.

Allow the message to sink in again – come to this table as we celebrate the Eucharist with a sense of the wonder for all that Christ achieved through dying on the cross and being raised to life again by God, the father of us all. Allow God to speak to you in the words of the Gospel – the GOOD NEWS! – and in the prayers, in the words of the Eucharistic Thanksgiving, and in the actions of kneeling, receiving and listening that form our celebration here this morning.

I don’t come to you this morning with any new thoughts, but I hope that the old thoughts, the eternal message of God given through the cross and the empty tomb become more and more real to you today and throughout the new life you share with the risen Christ. AMEN

From Passion to Praise

My April thought from the Parishes Paper, our local (excellent) monthly Church magazine...

Living Faith

April sees the greatest celebration in the Church’s year – Easter Day. It’s a wonderful, joy filled celebration of the risen life of our Lord Jesus Christ and we will have special services in every Parish Church on 12th April. But before that we will make extra effort to observe Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter Day) and there are services, which you will find details of elsewhere in the Parishes Paper, every day in this important week. In fact on Good Friday there are five services taking place, one in each parish, on what is the most solemn day of the Church year.

But why, you may ask, if Easter is so important, have so many services in the week beforehand? For those of you who have experience of the Church’s observance of Holy Week you will know that services in this week are often quiet, serious, reflective services. Surely such services distract from the exhuberence of Easter Day?

I believe that it is hard to grasp the full extent of joy and hope at Easter time unless we see the reality of all that Jesus went through in the days before and leading up to his death. In the betrayal, loss and suffering of Jesus we see the way in which he shared the pain we all experience in life. In his crucifixion and death we see the price that sin and evil exacts on our world, so often upon the innocent.

It is only when we see the darkness that the wonder of the light becomes truly apparent. Just as without an understanding of despair, hope means very little. It is because of what Jesus went through that the message of God’s power is all the more amazing, that Jesus’ new life comes from suffering and death, that nothing, not even death, is greater than the love of God.

For me this belief that God is there in darkness and light, good times and bad, that his love is with us even when we do not feel it makes faith real, alive. Being a Christian does not divorce us from the real world, it makes the reality of suffering even more apparent, but allows us to hold on to the hope of God’s life even in the worst of times. I would encourage you to come to one (or more) of the services in Holy Week that the glory of the resurrection may be even more real. May wonder, joy and hope be yours this Easter time.